as a performance and security insulation of internal systems, publishing open data without compromising integrity of internal systems

for cataloguing of internal data sources

Publishers are using ODN directly, i.e. have it installed and maintained within their infrastructure, employing wide variety of options to achieve that (ranging from using it for free with support provided by own internal IT staff to purchasing a commercial support from companies with necessary know-how and resources).

Aggregator of Open Data

Aggregators of Open Data (public body, NGO, SME, etc.) are a special case of data publishers: they create “new data” by combining data from others. Aggregators are both publishers and users at the same time, so they use ODN for same functions as mentioned above. But there are also other ODN specific functions they use:

efficient dataset replication, either between two ODN instances or between ODN and some other kind of data source

automated and repeatable data integration and linking

Application developer using Open Data

Application developers (SME, NGO, etc., public body too) can use one or more datasets (some Open, some not) in their applications. The main point in this case is to mix those various sources into one: one database or one triplestore, which is under their control and which servers as base for efficient functioning of their application.

Application developers are special kind of data aggregators: they do aggregate the data, but at the end they do not provide data, they provide services instead. Thus, application developers can utilize ODN in a similar way as aggregators. But in this context, what application developer can gain most from using ODN is independence – by employing ODN on their own servers:

better performance and higher availability can be achieved, compared to what the publishers of original (Open) data can provide

data can be adapted to the needs of particular application, thus allowing more efficient operations

Imagine loosing money or customers just because a server operated by somebody else (public body, etc.) is down or is unable to handle properly all the requests an application is making.

User of Open Data

Users (or consumers) of Open Data (citizen, data analyst, etc.) will in most cases use ODN indirectly: ODN will be hosted and maintained by somebody else (those other kinds of ODN users mentioned above) but those instances will provide consumers with following public services: